Natural zeolite (chabazite/phillipsite) dietary supplementation influences faecal microbiota and oxidant status of working dogs

We evaluated whether chabazite/phillipsite dietary supplementation might affect the faecal microbiota, oxidant and antioxidant status of working dogs at rest undergone to a trial test. Forty English Setter dogs were involved in two replicate trials. At each replicate, dogs were divided into two homogeneous groups (10 dogs/group). During a period of 28 days, diet was supplemented (Z group) or not supplemented (C group) with chabazite/phillipsite at the dose of 5 g/head/day. On day 29, dogs were subjected to a trial test. Faecal characteristics were assessed at 0 and 29 days (within two hours from the end of the trial test). Faecal consistency was not affected by dietary supplementation (p > .05). On day 29, Lactobacillus spp. and Enterococcus spp. counts were higher and Enterobacteriaceae were lower in Z than in C group (p  .05). Our results suggest that chabazite/phillipsite dietary supplementation, improves the intestinal microbiota ecosystem and may counteract the oxidative damage caused by physical stress in hunting dogs at the beginning of the working season

Portable infrared pupillometry in critical care

Infrared pupillometry was introduced in 1962 but portable instruments that use this technology have only recently become available in the hospital setting. Questions surrounding the accuracy of these instruments have been addressed by documenting the inter-observer agreement on pupillary measurements and also by comparisons with standard pen-light examinations. The following commentary summarizes the development of these devices and provides a wider perspective on how the pupil and its reflexes might be used in providing care for patients with critical illness

Preclinical and clinical evaluation of the liver tumor irreversible electroporation by magnetic resonance imaging

Irreversible electroporation (IRE) is a relatively new technique for tumor ablation. It has shown promising results in difficult cases where surgery is not recommended and delicate anatomic structures are present near or within the tumor. Currently, liver cancer is one of the most common targets for IRE treatment. Pre-operative and post-operative imaging has a key role in IRE procedures and research studies. Although ultrasound is usually the first choice, especially for intra-operative guidance, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) plays an important role in the visualization and characterization of tumor before and after IRE in clinical and preclinical studies. However, the appearance of liver lesions after IRE with different MRI sequences has never been systematically investigated, and the most common practice is to limit the acquisition protocol to only contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images. In this work, the role of MRI in clinical and preclinical assessment of hepatic tumors treated with IRE is reviewed and discussed

Acoustic cardiac triggering: a practical solution for synchronization and gating of cardiovascular magnetic resonance at 7 Tesla

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To demonstrate the applicability of acoustic cardiac triggering (ACT) for imaging of the heart at ultrahigh magnetic fields (7.0 T) by comparing phonocardiogram, conventional vector electrocardiogram (ECG) and traditional pulse oximetry (POX) triggered 2D CINE acquisitions together with (i) a qualitative image quality analysis, (ii) an assessment of the left ventricular function parameter and (iii) an examination of trigger reliability and trigger detection variance derived from the signal waveforms.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>ECG was susceptible to severe distortions at 7.0 T. POX and ACT provided waveforms free of interferences from electromagnetic fields or from magneto-hydrodynamic effects. Frequent R-wave mis-registration occurred in ECG-triggered acquisitions with a failure rate of up to 30% resulting in cardiac motion induced artifacts. ACT and POX triggering produced images free of cardiac motion artefacts. ECG showed a severe jitter in the R-wave detection. POX also showed a trigger jitter of approximately Δt = 72 ms which is equivalent to two cardiac phases. ACT showed a jitter of approximately Δt = 5 ms only. ECG waveforms revealed a standard deviation for the cardiac trigger offset larger than that observed for ACT or POX waveforms.</p> <p>Image quality assessment showed that ACT substantially improved image quality as compared to ECG (image quality score at end-diastole: ECG = 1.7 ± 0.5, ACT = 2.4 ± 0.5, p = 0.04) while the comparison between ECG vs. POX gated acquisitions showed no significant differences in image quality (image quality score: ECG = 1.7 ± 0.5, POX = 2.0 ± 0.5, p = 0.34).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The applicability of acoustic triggering for cardiac CINE imaging at 7.0 T was demonstrated. ACT's trigger reliability and fidelity are superior to that of ECG and POX. ACT promises to be beneficial for cardiovascular magnetic resonance at ultra-high field strengths including 7.0 T.</p

How do you say ‘hello’? Personality impressions from brief novel voices

On hearing a novel voice, listeners readily form personality impressions of that speaker. Accurate or not, these impressions are known to affect subsequent interactions; yet the underlying psychological and acoustical bases remain poorly understood. Furthermore, hitherto studies have focussed on extended speech as opposed to analysing the instantaneous impressions we obtain from first experience. In this paper, through a mass online rating experiment, 320 participants rated 64 sub-second vocal utterances of the word ‘hello’ on one of 10 personality traits. We show that: (1) personality judgements of brief utterances from unfamiliar speakers are consistent across listeners; (2) a two-dimensional ‘social voice space’ with axes mapping Valence (Trust, Likeability) and Dominance, each driven by differing combinations of vocal acoustics, adequately summarises ratings in both male and female voices; and (3) a positive combination of Valence and Dominance results in increased perceived male vocal Attractiveness, whereas perceived female vocal Attractiveness is largely controlled by increasing Valence. Results are discussed in relation to the rapid evaluation of personality and, in turn, the intent of others, as being driven by survival mechanisms via approach or avoidance behaviours. These findings provide empirical bases for predicting personality impressions from acoustical analyses of short utterances and for generating desired personality impressions in artificial voices

Reviewing the review:a qualitative assessment of the peer review process in surgical journals

Abstract Background Despite rapid growth of the scientific literature, no consensus guidelines have emerged to define the optimal criteria for editors to grade submitted manuscripts. The purpose of this project was to assess the peer reviewer metrics currently used in the surgical literature to evaluate original manuscript submissions. Methods Manuscript grading forms for 14 of the highest circulation general surgery-related journals were evaluated for content, including the type and number of quantitative and qualitative questions asked of peer reviewers. Reviewer grading forms for the seven surgical journals with the higher impact factors were compared to the seven surgical journals with lower impact factors using Fisher’s exact tests. Results Impact factors of the studied journals ranged from 1.73 to 8.57, with a median impact factor of 4.26 in the higher group and 2.81 in the lower group. The content of the grading forms was found to vary considerably. Relatively few journals asked reviewers to grade specific components of a manuscript. Higher impact factor journal manuscript grading forms more frequently addressed statistical analysis, ethical considerations, and conflict of interest. In contrast, lower impact factor journals more commonly requested reviewers to make qualitative assessments of novelty/originality, scientific validity, and scientific importance. Conclusion Substantial variation exists in the grading criteria used to evaluate original manuscripts submitted to the surgical literature for peer review, with differential emphasis placed on certain criteria correlated to journal impact factors

Building Thriving Workforces from the Top Down: A Call and Research Agenda for Organizations to Proactively Support Employee Well-Being

Organizational researchers studying well-being – as well as organizations themselves – often place much of the burden on employees to manage and preserve their own well-being. Missing from this discussion is how – from a human resources management (HRM) perspective – organizations and managers can directly and positively shape the well-being of their employees. The authors use this review to paint a picture of what organizations could be like if they valued people holistically and embraced the full experience of employees’ lives to promote well-being at work. In so doing, the authors tackle five challenges that managers may have to help their employees navigate, but to date have received more limited empirical and theoretical attention from an HRM perspective: (1) recovery at work; (2) women’s health; (3) concealable stigmas; (4) caregiving; and (5) coping with socio-environmental jolts. In each section, the authors highlight how past research has treated managerial or organizational support on these topics, and pave the way for where research needs to advance from an HRM perspective. The authors conclude with ideas for tackling these issues methodologically and analytically, highlighting ways to recruit and support more vulnerable samples that are encapsulated within these topics, as well as analytic approaches to study employee experiences more holistically. In sum, this review represents a call for organizations to now – more than ever – build thriving organizations

Very Cold Gas and Dark Matter

We have recently proposed a new candidate for baryonic dark matter: very cold molecular gas, in near-isothermal equilibrium with the cosmic background radiation at 2.73 K. The cold gas, of quasi-primordial abundances, is condensed in a fractal structure, resembling the hierarchical structure of the detected interstellar medium. We present some perspectives of detecting this very cold gas, either directly or indirectly. The H$_2$ molecule has an "ultrafine" structure, due to the interaction between the rotation-induced magnetic moment and the nuclear spins. But the lines fall in the km domain, and are very weak. The best opportunity might be the UV absorption of H$_2$ in front of quasars. The unexpected cold dust component, revealed by the COBE/FIRAS submillimetric results, could also be due to this very cold H$_2$ gas, through collision-induced radiation, or solid H$_2$ grains or snowflakes. The $\gamma$-ray distribution, much more radially extended than the supernovae at the origin of cosmic rays acceleration, also points towards and extended gas distribution.Comment: 16 pages, Latex pages, crckapb macro, 3 postscript figures, uuencoded compressed tar file. To be published in the proceeedings of the "Dust-Morphology" conference, Johannesburg, 22-26 January, 1996, D. Block (ed.), (Kluwer Dordrecht

Irreversible electroporation in primary and metastatic hepatic malignancies A review

Background: Liver cancer makes up a huge percentage of cancer mortality worldwide. Irreversible electroporation (IRE) is a relatively new minimally invasive nonthermal ablation technique for tumors that applies short pulses of high frequency electrical energy to irreversibly destabilize cell membrane to induce tumor cell apoptosis. Methods: This review aims to investigate the studies regarding the use of IRE treatment in liver tumors and metastases to liver. We searched PubMed for all of IRE relevant English language articles published up to September 2016. They included clinical trials, experimental studies, observational studies, and reviews. This review manuscript is nothing with ethics issues and ethical approval is not provided. Results: In recent years, increasingly more studies in both preclinical and clinical settings have been conducted to examine the safety and efficacy of this new technique, shedding light on the crucial advantages and disadvantages that IRE possesses. Unlike the current leading thermal ablation techniques, such as radiofrequency ablation (RFA), microwave ablation (MWA), and cryoablation, IRE requires shorter ablation time without damaging adjacent important vital structures. Conclusion: Although IRE has successfully claimed its valuable status in the field of hepatic cancer treatment both preclinical and clinical settings. In order to systemically test and establish its safety and efficacy for clinical applications, more studies still need to be conducted

Bilateral simultaneous rupture of the quadriceps tendon in a patient with psoriasis: a case report and review of the literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Bilateral quadriceps tendon rupture is not common in the absence of systemic disease. Patients with chronic systemic diseases such as uremia and systemic lupus erythematosus and patients who are being treated with systemic steroids or local steroid injections are more prone to tendon rupture. The tendon can rupture spontaneously or as a result of trauma. We report an unusual case of simultaneous bilateral traumatic quadriceps tendon rupture in a patient with psoriasis who was being treated with topical steroid preparations.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 57-year-old Caucasian man with a known history of psoriasis, for which he was being treated with topical steroid preparations, presented to our hospital with clinical signs of bilateral quadriceps tendon rupture after he fell while walking down stairs. The diagnosis was confirmed by bilateral ultrasound scans of the thighs. The patient underwent surgery to repair both quadriceps tendons. Post-operatively, the patient was immobilized first in bilateral cylinder casts for six weeks, then in knee braces for the next four weeks. His knees were actively mobilized during physiotherapy.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Bilateral quadriceps tendon rupture is a rare occurrence in patients with psoriasis who are being treated with topical steroids.</p